fluffy2097:Only most east coast highway service stations with actual services. Here's proof it could easily have been 0.4 miles to find a charger.

Heh, that zig-zaggy route on the map? Yeah, that's for the McDonalds. The other side of the freeway is the service station & tesla supercharger, and it doesn't really have much of a place to circle around like that (unless you want to go up the wrong way on a 1-way offramp). Link

fluffy2097:MrSteve007: fluffy2097: He had enough range to make it to the next one when he left the first.

I wonder what the range meter said 5 minutes after he left the supercharging station and decided to go blasting down the freeway at 83mph with the heater on full blast.

Straw man, He pulled in for the night with enough range to reach the next station, and left in the morning without enough charge to get there.

And the part you refuse to accept: He pulled into a charging station that morning, granted not a supercharger, but a charging station non-the-less, and LEFT again even when the car TOLD him he didn't have enough power to make it to the supercharger.

This reporter decided that batteries losing charge overnight wasn't enough of a story. He had to create a situation where the car had to be rescued. That is what we're annoyed about,

MrSteve007:fluffy2097: He had enough range to make it to the next one when he left the first.

I wonder what the range meter said 5 minutes after he left the supercharging station and decided to go blasting down the freeway at 83mph with the heater on full blast.

Ah, that one we can guess:

After he supercharged, he claims it said 185 miles. He then drove 61 miles to Norwich, and on arrival, it read 90 miles. Therefore, due to his driving and cabin settings, he was about 66% of the efficiency it estimated, and accordingly, the readout should've said something like 122.

MrSteve007:Heh, that zig-zaggy route on the map? Yeah, that's for the McDonalds. The other side of the freeway is the service station & tesla supercharger, and it doesn't really have much of a place to circle around like that (unless you want to go up the wrong way on a 1-way offramp). Link

Oooh, scratch that. The arial map shows a supercharger at the McD's too. Although in order to zig zag that much, you'd have to first go through the drive-thru (or exit into the semi truck area), then circle the solar roofed Tesla Supercharger for a while (which is open to traffic on both sides). Link

Atreyou40:You're both dumbasses. It's called "regenerative braking" an it's been around since the first hybrids and the idea is that a car in motion has some measurable inertia and to use the brakes as a capture device for that energy. I'm no physicist, and I have my doubts about the efficiency of such a thing given our current technology, but I have no doubt it's possible and even beneficial and can extend the range of an electric car by a couple miles, if not more.

What you're saying is you lack even a basic understanding of physics.

The only way regenerative braking could "add" energy to the car's closed energy system is if you braked while going downhill, and if your trip began at "uphill" from the downhill location. Using the engine (at less than 100% efficiency) to accelerate, then using the brakes (at less than 100% efficiency) cannot add charge to the system. Additionally, if you use energy to travel uphill, you cannot then gain energy by going downhill, unless the amount downhill is greater than the height uphill.

MadCat:fluffy2097: MrSteve007: fluffy2097: He had enough range to make it to the next one when he left the first.

I wonder what the range meter said 5 minutes after he left the supercharging station and decided to go blasting down the freeway at 83mph with the heater on full blast.

Straw man, He pulled in for the night with enough range to reach the next station, and left in the morning without enough charge to get there.

And the part you refuse to accept: He pulled into a charging station that morning, granted not a supercharger, but a charging station non-the-less, and LEFT again even when the car TOLD him he didn't have enough power to make it to the supercharger.

This reporter decided that batteries losing charge overnight wasn't enough of a story. He had to create a situation where the car had to be rescued. That is what we're annoyed about,

I so want this car to be awesome and i want to own one, but the more i learn about this aeon flux guy, the less i trust. somebody's full of shiat here, and it's not the reporter. the reporter made some mistakes while driving, but flux is giving him shiat for circling in a parking lot for a half mile? has he never been to a mall or a city?

People can say the reporter is a shill for an oil company all they like,but it's only speculation at best, deranged paranoia at worst. the only one with a proven financial incentive is flux.

Bullseyed:Atreyou40: You're both dumbasses. It's called "regenerative braking" an it's been around since the first hybrids and the idea is that a car in motion has some measurable inertia and to use the brakes as a capture device for that energy. I'm no physicist, and I have my doubts about the efficiency of such a thing given our current technology, but I have no doubt it's possible and even beneficial and can extend the range of an electric car by a couple miles, if not more.

What you're saying is you lack even a basic understanding of physics.

The only way regenerative braking could "add" energy to the car's closed energy system is if you braked while going downhill, and if your trip began at "uphill" from the downhill location. Using the engine (at less than 100% efficiency) to accelerate, then using the brakes (at less than 100% efficiency) cannot add charge to the system. Additionally, if you use energy to travel uphill, you cannot then gain energy by going downhill, unless the amount downhill is greater than the height uphill.

The issue here I think is misuse of the word Add. Regenerative braking doesn't create new energy, but it does reclaim some of the energy you have already put into the system. This reclaimed energy is often shown as a momentary net positive on an electric car's energy usage display.

rcuhljr:That would relevant and interesting if car speedometers didn't tend read higher then your actual speed, to keep liability in speeding as a relative non-issue. If we apply the 'innacurate speedo' claim here we would have to assume that the speedo showed him 65 when he was actually traveling 60 and he claimed 54.

What part of "showing readings anywhere from sub-50 to over-60" did you not understand?

I've seen and driven many, many cars that say they're going slower than they really are.

Atreyou40:You're both dumbasses. It's called "regenerative braking" an it's been around since the first hybrids and the idea is that a car in motion has some measurable inertia and to use the brakes as a capture device for that energy. I'm no physicist, and I have my doubts about the efficiency of such a thing given our current technology, but I have no doubt it's possible and even beneficial and can extend the range of an electric car by a couple miles, if not more. Here, why don't you go learn something:

No, you're the spectacularly ignorant dumbass. Why? Because regenerative braking only recoups SOME of the energy lost to braking. In other words, if you slow down and then speed back up again, you lose energy versus staying at a steady speed.

If that wasn't the case, you'd have invented a perpetual energy machine.

So take your know-it-all attitude and shove it up your jacksie, you farking arrogant tool.

Theaetetus:MadCat: fluffy2097: MrSteve007: fluffy2097: He had enough range to make it to the next one when he left the first.

I wonder what the range meter said 5 minutes after he left the supercharging station and decided to go blasting down the freeway at 83mph with the heater on full blast.

Straw man, He pulled in for the night with enough range to reach the next station, and left in the morning without enough charge to get there.

And the part you refuse to accept: He pulled into a charging station that morning, granted not a supercharger, but a charging station non-the-less, and LEFT again even when the car TOLD him he didn't have enough power to make it to the supercharger.

This reporter decided that batteries losing charge overnight wasn't enough of a story. He had to create a situation where the car had to be rescued. That is what we're annoyed about,

themanuf:So you are saying the logs and the speed indicated on the speedometer are from different sources of data? If the car's computer was capable of knowing and logging the actual speed why wouldn't that same data stream go to the speedometer as well?

While your point of speedometers often not indicating actual speed is probably correct, your conclusion is incongruous with the facts as we know them.

Yes, they're from different data. One comes from a GPS tracking device. The other comes from a physical connection to the drivetrain. If that wasn't the case, you'd lose your speedo every time you drove in a tunnel.

I so want this car to be awesome and i want to own one, but the more i learn about this aeon flux guy, the less i trust. somebody's full of shiat here, and it's not the reporter. the reporter made some mistakes while driving, but flux is giving him shiat for circling in a parking lot for a half mile? has he never been to a mall or a city?

People can say the reporter is a shill for an oil company all they like,but it's only speculation at best, deranged paranoia at worst. the only one with a proven financial incentive is flux.

The reporter left a charging station with 35mi range, and a 62mi journey. He also passed other charging stations. He wanted the car to conk out so he could have a good story, that's what people are complaining about.

"Now that Tesla is striving to be a mass-market automaker, it cannot realistically expect all 20,000 buyers a year (the Model S sales goal) to beelectric-car acolytes who will plug in at every Walmart stop."

So, they shouldn't expect people to treat it like an electric car? Interesting assertion, asshat.

horsepocket:You need to get better cars. Seriously, you really need to buy better cars. I've owned 11 cars over the course of my life, ranging from a used 86 Cutlas to a new BMW, and never has the speedometer been off by more than 2mph when compared to radar results. The speedometer is usually dead on, which always surprises me.

Changing out wheel and tire sizes can have an effect on your speedometer reading, but I'm guessing a stock from the factory test car will have a speedometer off by more than 1mph.

Try paying more attention. The amount by which the speedo differs from the real speed typically varies significantly depending on the speed you're driving at. That's why I cited "at 55 mph", because that's what *I* typically pay most attention to, since that's the speed I most often drive at.

And I've driven plenty of cars, including American, Japanese, and European. Not sports cars, but more than a few expensive sedans. (And a couple of cheap ones, as well; interestingly one of the cheapest was one of the most accurate.)

Very few have been within 2-3mph, and I've yet to find a single car that was 100% accurate at 55mph, let alone at all speeds. And that's on stock rubber. (I never, ever put a different size wheel/tire on a car than it left the factory with.)

fluffy2097:cmunic8r99: fluffy2097: What asshole drives around in a parking lot with an area of 3.5 miles for 5 whole minutes and goes 0.6 whole miles to find a spot?

How many parking lots with 100 spaces have an area of 3.5 miles?

[img.gawkerassets.com image 640x295]

Only most east coast highway service stations with actual services. Here's proof it could easily have been 0.4 miles to find a charger.

I work and live petty close to the Milford Rest Stop on I-95.

I'm assuming that Broder used the Northbound service station at Milford, which is this one. As you can see, the parking lot on the Northbound lot is actually a pretty tiny lot. And it's really easy to find the Superchargers since they're pretty much directly in front of the McDonald's right there with big gigantic white Tesla charging banks in front of it. Plus, they're almost always open because, let's face it, there's not a whole lot of people, even in my part of the state (southern Connecticut) who own Tesla cars.

I don't know why he would continuously circle a lot that small to look for the Superchargers for .5 miles since they're so damn conspicuous and almost guaranteed to be open. A circle of that tiny lot is about .13 miles assuming you run a full circuit around the lot.

gweilo8888:themanuf: So you are saying the logs and the speed indicated on the speedometer are from different sources of data? If the car's computer was capable of knowing and logging the actual speed why wouldn't that same data stream go to the speedometer as well?

While your point of speedometers often not indicating actual speed is probably correct, your conclusion is incongruous with the facts as we know them.

Yes, they're from different data. One comes from a GPS tracking device. The other comes from a physical connection to the drivetrain. If that wasn't the case, you'd lose your speedo every time you drove in a tunnel.

Speedometers calculate speed based on wheel revolutions. Car computers take the number of revolutions the wheel is making and use the manufacturer's tire radius specifications to calculate both distance traveled for your odometer and speed for your speedometer. Deviating even a little bit from the specified tire radius can have a significant impact on this information. That's part of the reason it's important to keep your tires at the proper pressure.

MadCat:Speedometers calculate speed based on wheel revolutions. Car computers take the number of revolutions the wheel is making and use the manufacturer's tire radius specifications to calculate both distance traveled for your odometer and speed for your speedometer. Deviating even a little bit from the specified tire radius can have a significant impact on this information. That's part of the reason it's important to keep your tires at the proper pressure.

I am well aware of that. I have also never yet driven a car that gave a correct speed on the speedo at 55mph, on stock wheels / tires, with the tires inflated to the correct pressure.

Bullseyed:Actually if you look at http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Electric_car you will see that the Tesla Model S, the Chevy Volt, and the Ford Taurus all get better highway than city fuel economy.

It makes sense in the Volt, since it runs a combustion engine at freeway speeds. It is curious that the Tesla S ranks ever so slightly better at freeways, but it appears to be the only pure EV that does that. The Ford Taurus isn't electric or hybrid - that appears to have been thrown in there as a gas car comparison. But if you look at every other EV on there (RAV4 EV, LEAF, BMW ActiveE, Fiat 500e, Mitsubishi i, Honda Fit EV, and Scion iQ EV, they all get quite a bit better city MPGe than highway.)

fluffy2097:MadCat: No, they both say he had 185 miles at Milford Supercharge #1. He had 35 miles when he left Norwich.

/Perhaps you should lay off the insults a bit?

So you think its fine that he went from 90 miles to 25 overnight and was FORCED to stop at Norwich to limp to the superchargers that he was supposed to be testing? That's not a problem with the car at all could it be?

It is only a problem if you have zero understanding of science. You phone battery will run down overnight if you don't plug it in either. Imagine that!

If you understand that you're losing energy, then you understand that every stop and go is a net loss.Every single time, you lose energy. And the more it happens, the more energy you're losing. Even if you're not going very far.So there can be a dramatic difference in energy consumption over 2 miles, based solely on how much stopping and going you do, even though you have super-neat regenerative brakes.

So if you happen to be driving through a section of road that's notorious for the absurd nature of its stop and go traffic -- and in winter, where climate control is eating your battery as a function of time, not distance -- then surely you realize that a detour of "only" 2 miles, may well be a significant drain on the battery,* even though* your regenerative brakes are making you much more efficient than if you'd been in an ICE car without them.

And *that* is "The Point". Regenerative brakes are good, but not so good that they can remotely outweigh the energy losses of driving "only" 2 miles of *Manhattan*, in winter.

gweilo8888:MadCat: Speedometers calculate speed based on wheel revolutions. Car computers take the number of revolutions the wheel is making and use the manufacturer's tire radius specifications to calculate both distance traveled for your odometer and speed for your speedometer. Deviating even a little bit from the specified tire radius can have a significant impact on this information. That's part of the reason it's important to keep your tires at the proper pressure.

I am well aware of that. I have also never yet driven a car that gave a correct speed on the speedo at 55mph, on stock wheels / tires, with the tires inflated to the correct pressure.

I'm sure that's true if you're looking for decimal point accuracy. For the majority of us it's enough that our speedometers match the automated police radar traps that display "current speed"

I'm a cab driver and light duty mechanic, I've driven hundreds of different vehicles over the last couple months and I have yet to find one that failed this test on stock wheels and properly inflated tires. When they don't match it's always been due to improper replacement tire selection, or low tire pressure.

ringersol:So if you happen to be driving through a section of road that's notorious for the absurd nature of its stop and go traffic -- and in winter, where climate control is eating your battery as a function of time, not distance -- then surely you realize that a detour of "only" 2 miles, may well be a significant drain on the battery,* even though* your regenerative brakes are making you much more efficient than if you'd been in an ICE car without them.

And *that* is "The Point". Regenerative brakes are good, but not so good that they can remotely outweigh the energy losses of driving "only" 2 miles of *Manhattan*, in winter.

FYI, compared to driving to and from work on an open freeway, 50 miles, traveling at 60mph - and days with mostly stop an go traffic (even when below freezing and running the heat), I always arrive with quite a bit more energy (at least 10% more) when driving on the high traffic days.

fluffy2097:Only most east coast highway service stations with actual services. Here's proof it could easily have been 0.4 miles to find a charger.

Your account is way too old to be a shill or a paid troll, so I am sort of wondering why you are so diligently siding with the reporter on this one. Yes, I agree Musk is coming across pretty douchy, but in this case the facts really do seem to show that the reporter was even more of a douchbag.

If the data logs are un-modified, then the reporter is clearly in the wrong. This is a big IF, and I have a feeling that if the NYT doubles down on this derp, then we are going to see how admissible they are in court, and how solid an evidence trail they can construct. However, it would be very difficult to fake this data. They could manipulate speed graphs, but there are too many interconnected factors that would no longer add up. If they just stretched the scale to show him driving faster, the area under the curve is going to grow into a distance substantially longer than the trip he took. As someone who used to work in an engineering lab, I don't think that Tesla had long enough to construct a false data-set that would hold up to any sort of scrutiny. Remember it is not just the speed, distance, and charge data they would have to fake, but also the voltage loads on various components, mechanical data, and other internal information. The only problem Tesla has is that most Americans are too dumb to interpret graphs.

So guess you are either a troll (paid?) looking for reactions, or you have some sort of personal attachment to the NYT or the 'reporter.'

Atreyou40:If there's no efficiency to be gained then why bother trying to recapture the kinetic energy of the car?

You're obviously incredibly unintelligent, the the point where attempting explanation is a waste of time and energy. But here is to hoping someone else reading is less stupid than you are.

The trip begins and ends with the car at a complete stop. Ergo the net effect of energy gain from stopping the car between driving styles is zero. An object in motion tends to remain in motion, while an object at rest tends to remain at rest. Ergo the energy necessary to maintain speed is always less than the energy to initiate motion. Ergo it is always more energy efficient to travel at a consistent speed than to start and stop repeatedly.

There may be design flaws in things like transmissions, gear and axles, aerodynamics, etc with the car. For example, Nisan and Toyota love those boxy retarded cars which suffer greatly aerodynamically. A properly designed car will always have better highway rating than city rating. That is why the Tesla Model S, Chevy Volt and Ford Taurus do better on highways, while trash cars like the Nisan Leaf do not.

fluffy2097:(Remember, civilian GPS is only accurate to a few meters we don't get milspec 2" accurate GPS)

That is factually incorrect. Civilian GPS has been exactly as accurate as military GPS for more than a decade, and modern GPS satellites do not even have the capability to selectively degrade the service.

themanuf:fluffy2097: themanuf: So you are saying the logs and the speed indicated on the speedometer are from different sources of data? If the car's computer was capable of knowing and logging the actual speed why wouldn't that same data stream go to the speedometer as well?

Because data logging is done via GPS tracking whereas speedometer readings are based off rotations of the wheels, which is something that varies depending on the diameter of the wheels you have.

/Has a GPS in his car//Dash speedo is not connected to GPS speedo.

I find it very hard to believe that the speed data in that chart is based of gps data. My reasoning:

GPS will give you a location at any given moment. You would have to be polling gps data at an insane rate and with very high accuracy to generate that chart. Also, you would need to account for the time domain if you are going to calculate speed based on location/time data. Correcting for the moments when the car wasn't moving would be difficult and annoying.

You are correct. If my 2012 Toyota pickup's ECM knows its speed, slew rate, steering wheel and gas pedal positions without the help of GPS or other external devices (and it does), then I fully expect the Tesla to have all that and more.

fluffy2097:MrSteve007: fluffy2097: He had enough range to make it to the next one when he left the first.

I wonder what the range meter said 5 minutes after he left the supercharging station and decided to go blasting down the freeway at 83mph with the heater on full blast.

Straw man, He pulled in for the night with enough range to reach the next station, and left in the morning without enough charge to get there.

1.) You demonstrate here that you don't even know what a strawman is, by using the term incorrectly.2.) You're talking about an entirely different leg of the trip. Due to your repeated misuse, it must be assumed that either you're illiterate or intentionally repeatedly referencing the wrong leg of the trip because you are utterly wrong.

Bullseyed:There may be design flaws in things like transmissions, gear and axles, aerodynamics, etc with the car. For example, Nisan and Toyota love those boxy retarded cars which suffer greatly aerodynamically. A properly designed car will always have better highway rating than city rating. That is why the Tesla Model S, Chevy Volt and Ford Taurus do better on highways, while trash cars like the Nisan Leaf do not.

FYI, the 2013 Nissan Leaf's drag coefficient is Cd=0.28, the same as the Chevy Volt - and lower than a Corvette.

The Tesla S has one of 0.24, which is one of the lowest of any production car. The 2010 Ford Taurus? 0.32. Link

RatOmeter:themanuf: fluffy2097: themanuf: So you are saying the logs and the speed indicated on the speedometer are from different sources of data? If the car's computer was capable of knowing and logging the actual speed why wouldn't that same data stream go to the speedometer as well?

Because data logging is done via GPS tracking whereas speedometer readings are based off rotations of the wheels, which is something that varies depending on the diameter of the wheels you have.

/Has a GPS in his car//Dash speedo is not connected to GPS speedo.

I find it very hard to believe that the speed data in that chart is based of gps data. My reasoning:

GPS will give you a location at any given moment. You would have to be polling gps data at an insane rate and with very high accuracy to generate that chart. Also, you would need to account for the time domain if you are going to calculate speed based on location/time data. Correcting for the moments when the car wasn't moving would be difficult and annoying.

You are correct. If my 2012 Toyota pickup's ECM knows its speed, slew rate, steering wheel and gas pedal positions without the help of GPS or other external devices (and it does), then I fully expect the Tesla to have all that and more.

Yes, I have no doubt the on-board computer does know all of that info; but we ended up debating whether the data in the speed graph was from the computer itself or based on gps data. I am still of the assumption it is based on the computer data, but we can't rule out that it is based on gps data.

Thus back to the original post that I took exception to, the reporter may not be lying about his speed as he would have been looking at the speedometer while the plot showing he was going faster than he said was based on gps.

However, to counter my counter, as someone said above, it is rare for a speedometer to read low. Especially so low as to account for the difference in what he said and what the data shows. Ergo, in my opinion he is lying.

You are correct. If my 2012 Toyota pickup's ECM knows its speed, slew rate, steering wheel and gas pedal positions without the help of GPS or other external devices (and it does), then I fully expect the Tesla to have all that and more.

Yes, I have no doubt the on-board computer does know all of that info; but we ended up debating whether the data in the speed graph was from the computer itself or based on gps data. I am still of the assumption it is based on the computer data, but we can't rule out that it is based on gps data.

Thus back to the original post that I took exception to, the reporter may not be lying about his speed as he would have been looking at the speedometer while the plot showing he was going faster than he said was based on gps.

However, to counter my counter, as someone said above, it is rare for a speedometer to read low. Especially so low as to account for the difference in what he said and what the data shows. Ergo, in my opinion ...

I can't think of any sensible reason for Telsa to use anything but the car itself for sensing and logging. At the worst, if they don't have logging built in (I'm sure they do), add-on OBD-II and CAN based programmable loggers are available.

ringersol:If you understand that you're losing energy, then you understand that every stop and go is a net loss.Every single time, you lose energy. And the more it happens, the more energy you're losing. Even if you're not going very far.

evaned:ringersol: If you understand that you're losing energy, then you understand that every stop and go is a net loss.Every single time, you lose energy. And the more it happens, the more energy you're losing. Even if you're not going very far.

Bullseyed:The trip begins and ends with the car at a complete stop. Ergo the net effect of energy gain from stopping the car between driving styles is zero. An object in motion tends to remain in motion, while an object at rest tends to remain at rest. Ergo the energy necessary to maintain speed is always less than the energy to initiate motion. Ergo it is always more energy efficient to travel at a consistent speed than to start and stop repeatedly.

This is false. An object in motion tends to remain in motion as long as the net forces on it add up to zero. As long as the atmospheric drag is balanced by locomotive force, the vehicle will remain in motion. Unfortunately, aerodynamic drag goes up as the square of velocity. At highway speeds a vehicle will always be less efficient from an energy-consumed standpoint than that same vehicle at lower speeds. Most cars have transmissions and motors which are optimized for (more efficient at) highway speeds, but all that means is that they waste energy at lower speeds.

In the US, it is uncommon to drive long distances at city speeds. If we were ok with this as consumers, our vehicles would have much smaller motors, and they would maintain fantastic mileage with the much decreased aerodynamic loadings... but you are right, they would still get better constant mileage than start/stop milage, because the mechanical systems are not optimized for the lower speeds.

However, if the efficiency of the motor and the regenerative braking system are high enough, a consumer auto can get better energy efficiency at low speeds. While no energy system is 100% efficient (thermo kills that) if your regenerative braking system captures a significant amount of your acceleration energy, then it is possible that your combined power losses to rolling/mechanical friction, and power transmission and regeneration, are going to be lower than the aerodynamic drag at high speeds. Remember friction is proportional to velocity, while drag is the square of velocity.

So it is possible for an electric car with a high efficiency motor and transmission to be more efficient in start/stop city traffic than at highway speeds.

I'm sorry, I didn't know I had to take sides. You want to provide some evidence to show me where I'm wrong, or are you just looking for a fight?

In this thread you have argued:

1.) That regenerative brakes are a magical perpetual motion device2.) That regenerative brakes can never add distance city vs highway because of the law of conservation of energy

There is always "sides" when it comes to physics, because one side is factual and the other side is either idiots or trolls.

I have argued neither point. You must have me confused with another poster. My one and only post on the subject was to point out that regenerative breaking reclaims a portion of the energy already placed in the system, which displays as an increase in available energy.

To expand further and for the first time actually "take sides" just to make you happy:

At that moment in time the energy available to the car is in fact increasing, however when netted with the energy used to bring the car up to speed before braking occurred you will see a net decrease. This does not exclude an increase in range due to regenerative braking however. In normal braking operation much of the energy introduced to the system by the previous acceleration up to speed is lost to the environment in the form of waste heat. This is not energy created or destroyed, it is simply transferred. Regenerative braking allows some of this energy to be stored back in the car's battery for use later. Again, this is not energy created nor destroyed. The energy is still transferred, but instead of transferring it to the environment in the form of heat, we transfer it to the battery in the form of an electrical charge.

/I am a firm believer in the laws of physics//Living where I do they are constantly on display

gweilo8888:noitsnot: I kind of figured that was just circling to get a spot - as most folks that live in big cities have to do. The spots are always all full, and you gotta circle (with a bunch of other vultures) to get a spot when one opens.

It ain't like a mall in Nebraska where the parking lots are mostly empty all the time.

And I'm sure there were only 2 spots with chargers, that people with non-electric cars had taken.

This. Take a look at Google maps and you will see that half a mile is precisely 3.5 times around the perimeter of the car park. That's not unrealistic for somebody who's looking for a parking space, and endeavoring not to block other vehicles while they do so.

If you say so. I've never toured a parking lot that many times in my life for a spot; can't remember the last time I even did more than a full circuit - including when I lived near Milford CT, which is apparently part of the route.